Weltschmerz

Durch Hanomaru

Disclaimer: Whatever. Don't own, but still think everyone should just have one big orgy and that would solve everything.

Warnings: Shonen-ai, perhaps some language, weirdness.

A/N: Thanks again to DaRLinG1537 for her loyal reviewing. I feel special

Ah! That's not the only reason I feel special. You may find this hard to believe, but I, Hanomaru, the Disgusting Wench with the Obsession with Anime, have... A DATE! ZOMGWTFx0rz! Anyways, on with the show. Heh.

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Traum

Ed found himself in a strange place. Ed was accustomed to strange, but this was strange even by his standards. He was surrounded by some cloud of what was either mist or dust, and unable to see more than about half a metre in front of him. He appeared to be sitting, but couldn't feel the ground beneath him with his hands. He gave up making sense of it and sat for what felt like hours, just waiting for some motivation to move.

The fog thickened and thinned in patches. Once, Ed thought he saw a shoe floating slowly, turning and dancing through the air as though in microgravity. Another time, he caught a glimpse of an immense concrete structure distorting as it moved upside-down across the thinned patch. A thick patch then passed by and obscured even his own nose from his vision.

He thought he heard something in the endless silence and fog. He turned, ears focused with every fibre of their being on the direction from which the noise had come. It came again. It was Al's voice, slightly panicked, the kind he used when something minor had blown up into something outrageous. Ed shot up and ran towards the source. He ran for a few minutes before the fog started to thin. He slowed down when he saw an orangey-yellow light beyond it. His step became cautious as the light grew brighter until the fog disappeared from around him with a whoosh.

The light blazed everywhere. Explosions surrounded him. Ed knew already what was going on. Allied bombers were probably flying overhead, bombing this town because it contained a Nazi munitions factory. Probably.

He walked on, regardless of the fact that there was absolutely no one around, and no sound besides the explosions. He shut it all out in his mind and let his feet carry him to where Al's voice had come from. Even when a bomb landed in a house just ahead of him, he kept walking at the same pace until the fog came and ended him up elsewhere.

Now he was walking along the side of a busy street in Munich. He had been here before. He knew the exact time, the exact place. Everything was the way it had been on that day that he had resolved to reconstruct the Gate.

There was going to be a breeze passing him... now. There it had gone. He hadn't felt it, but knew it had passed by how his hair moved. Then a man in a car threw his cigar out a window onto the sidewalk, just as he had before. Ed 's heart began to dance. He knew what was coming next.

He turned his head. He had no control over the action. It was merely a repetition of what had happened before. His entire body was turned, and then he saw him.

A man, walking along the other side of the street, completely oblivious to everything. His blazer matched the colour of his hair precisely. His proud, stiff gait was unmistakeable.

Something else strange happened. Everyone and everything around them froze, but Ed and the man were still able to move. He did something Ed didn't remember him doing. He turned and looked Ed right in the eye. Then, instantaneously, the two were in the middle of the street, and Ed was face to face with a man who looked exactly like Roy Mustang.

The fog came again and carried them to a field near Risembul. Ed was back in his red coat, Roy Mustang in his uniform, and they stood, facing each other for seconds in silence as the wind whistled through the grass around them. The man began to speak, but not in words. He made no noise. He seemed to speak in ideas. Ed just knew what he was saying without actually hearing it. There was emotion in his communication: impatience, despair, concern.

Ed couldn't help himself. He embraced the man who had given him the inspiration to become a State Alchemist. He hung on as the field dropped away from under them. He knew that that gloved hand was on the back of his head, clasping Ed in a loving, protective embrace. The fog surrounded them again, and they were pulled apart by an unforgiving force.

The reality of the situation hit Ed. The fog was a combination of smoke, steam and leftover alchemical energy. This fog was far too familiar to him. He hit the ground, small, exhausted and confused. He looked up and saw a pale hand reaching to the heavens as the fog cleared...

...and Al's voice called him to wakefulness. Ed's eyes opened wide and took in his surroundings. There was Al, sitting by his bed, as he had been the entire time. He had a bit of gauze bandaged to his arm, but was otherwise as normal. There was Winry on the other side of the bed looking as relieved as she could look. Ed sat up and looked around. He was in a hospital, and that was all he knew. He reached up and touched his forehead. There was a bandage on it. Nothing big, just a little patch job. He looked at Al and asked what had happened.

"Well... that thing... exploded. The house is gone, but the insurance is enough for us to keep an apartment in Central, so I guess it's okay... Winry and I managed to get everyone away before the blast... except you and Mustang..." Al's eyes drifted away from Ed's face. Ed could practically read his brother's mind, and knew that Roy had been hurt badly. He looked over Al's shoulder and saw another bed behind him.

There was Roy, out cold, but still in pain, judging from his expression. His head and shoulders were heavily bandaged, and Ed could bet that that wasn't the maximum of his injuries. He remembered his dream and let thoughts cycle through his head until the truth presented itself.

"So he...?"

Al made a small, affirmative noise and nodded slightly. Ed's eyes stayed on his superior's face, searching for consciousness, hoping that he would be able to thank him.

Winry made a small noise. Ed turned around and looked into her eyes. She had to try multiple times before the words came out right. "I... have to tell you, Ed... I already told Al... Pinako was killed by that th-thing."

"What? How?"

"She tried to fight it two days ago, but she was just..." Winry tried to speak again, but found she couldn't. Ed hushed her. She gripped his arm and let her head fall on his shoulder. Ed hugged her, and Al walked around the side of the bed to try and comfort her. The girl they'd always known as their big sister, one of the strongest and occasionally scariest women they had ever known, was in need of their help. They let her cry.

Ed looked back at the man in the next bed and, even though he couldn't hear it, mouthed a sincere thank you before he, too, cried in grief for his Aunt Pinako.

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A/N: Well, that was weird, wasn't it? I'm sorry if this chapter is utter crap. I wrote it in two hours and I was in an especially odd mood today.

Dreamy-flashbacky-things. Yaaay.